Indy to Daytona to Monaco

juuuuniorrrrrr

December 10, 2014

It's not too late to grab the "BEAST Bundle" from Octane Press as a great holiday gift. Click the link to order directly.

For only $40 (a savings of $50), you get hardcover copies of my latest book, BEAST, as well as my Dale Jr.-focused book, IN THE RED, plus a cool 2015 racing calendar from Pete Lyons. You could even buy a bundle and keep one or two of the items for yourself!

(Look at that photo and see how manly the rough wood looks in the background, so you know your dad/brother/husband/son will love it as a manly gift. Oh, and ladies like the books too.)

Thanks once again to all who have purchased my books, as BEAST is still going strong as the new year approaches. I appreciate all of the kind words and support from so many this year!

March 09, 2014

I wrote the book IN THE REDin 2011 in the midst of what had been a rough on-track stretch for Dale Earnhardt Jr. When things weren't going so well, it was easy to forget the attitude that was so prominent in his early years in the Cup Series. While IN THE RED was the story of the tragic 2001 season, I was taken aback by the attitude Dale Jr. and the rest of the No. 8 Budweiser team showed in those early years.

While digging through stacks and stacks of my notepads and vast media coverage from 2001, I continually marvelled at the strength and willpower from Junior to overcome his father's death, despite being constantly inundated by constant reminders of his loss. With his uncle Tony Eury Sr. and cousin Tony Jr., the three had a swagger that was infectious. At the Daytona and Talladega Superspeedway races in the Bud era, Junior was supremely self-assured and aggressive. He always believed the safest way to avoid the giant crashes was to be in the lead or as close as possible. The result was a number of dominating performances.

That confidence and swagger was missing in recent years. He seemed to race with a strange kind of timidity. It was as if he was barely having fun.

Yet, his Daytona 500 performance last month - grabbing the race by the scruff of the neck - showed the return of an attitude that is incredibly encouraging for Junior fans across the land. He once told Rolling Stone magazine that he felt like Superman in the car, able to lift 300 pounds. Superman is back.

Yet, I was struck moreso by the emergence of Junior's personality. His unbridled joy with the victory, his very apparent affection and appreciation of his team. This was something even those of us on the inside rarely saw in the early days. Junior's inherent shyness meant those kind of emotional moments were rare.

I was also shocked when he was clearly excited about a week of media appearances as the Daytona 500 winner. While I was coordinating media appearances for him during the Bud years, he was reticent to do media appearances that took him out of his comfort zone. It took several years of polite cajoling to get him to agree to make an appearance on the Tonight Show. Despite the fact he was very good in that format, he was always extremely anxious beforehand.

On his first Late Show with David Letterman appearance - after his 500 win in 2004 - he neither saw nor met Dave, and was asked to do donuts in the street in a trick Corvette owned by one of the staff. He managed to do well on air, but was nervous as hell about possibly bending a wheel on the curb or worse yet crashing someone's prized Corvette. He was even hesitant to purposely beat up a tiny, generic rental car by squeezing it into a too-small parking spot. (We also didn't meet Lindsey Lohan, who was in the next dressing room that night. We did, however, hear a lot of crying, screaming and arguing eminating from her room.) This year, we saw a much more relaxed (and a much better dressed) man alongside Dave.

After several days of media appearances in '04, he was exhausted as we were being driven to the airport to take NASCAR's jet back to reality. On the drive, his cell phone rang with a call from Matt Kenseth to congratulate him on his win.

"Dude, if you ever have a chance to win the 500," Junior told his good friend, "just finish second because they'll wear your ass out doing all of this media."

I could never tell how much was a joke and how much was his real feelings in that comment.

Now, with a huge assist from his crew chief, Steve Letarte, his girlfriend Amy and team owner Rick Hendrick, his personality and confidence are bursting on and off the track. While I'm thrilled with his racing sucess so far in 2014, I'm much more happy to see him as a more content man that's much more comfortable in his skin.

May 06, 2013

I'm proud to report my latest book, IN THE RED, has received a bronze medal from the 2013 Independent Publisher Book Awards. Thanks goes to Lee Klancher and Octane Press - the fine publisher based in Austin, Texas.

The book is available in hardcover and all eBook formats wherever books are sold. You can order direct from Octane at the link above. They also offer autographed versions.

Thanks to all who have been so supportive of the project and everyone who has purchased a copy of the book.

November 15, 2012

Amazon has an array of data available to authors, and I was intrigued to learn that "In The Red" has sold in 99 of the 100 geographic regions they measure across the country. (Now, if I could only find that one outlier!)

Unsurprisingly given the site of several of the most intriguing moments in the book, the highest sales figures are from the Dayona/Orlando region, closely followed by New York and Philadelphia. While their considerable populations no doubt are the major factor, I don't know of anyone who considers either metropolis to be a hotbed of interest in NASCAR or motorsports. In recent weeks, the Dallas market has been the most active.

I can't thank everyone enough for the support for "In The Red." It's available in a second hardcover printing and all formats of eBooks. You can order the hardcover or an autographed copy directly from Octane Press at: http://www.octanepress.com/book/red.

If you'd like more details about the book, there are a number of online outlets. Each includes behind-the-scenes details, photos and videos and much more.

September 18, 2011

If you're one of the folks who wondered if I'd fallen from the face of the earth, I apologize for abandoning the ol' blog for a few months. But, I promise it was all for good reason.

I am excited to announce my latest book, In The Red. It will be released in early 2012 by Octane Press, LLC. You can pre-order now at: http://octanepress.com/book/red You can also read the book's first chapter on the Octane site.

The 2001 season seemed to involve every emotion one could experience, from the horrific tragedy of Dale Earnhardt's death in the season-opening Daytona 500 to Dale Jr's emotional and triumphant return to Daytona in July. In the same way "Driver No. 8" chronicled the 2000 NASCAR season, In The Red picks up where it left off, giving an insider's view of the 2001 season with Dale Earnhardt Jr.

I'm close to the material, so it's hard to be objective, but I strongly believe this is the best work I've ever done.

In the build-up to the book's release, I'm happy to offer a lot of never-before-seen material all across the web. Here are some of those outlets:

Twitter: Follow @InTheRed2001 for interactive chats during each Chase race of 2011. We'll also Tweet links to much of the other material.

Facebook: "Like" the Facebook page for In The Red to see daily updates including never-before seen photos,videos and even music from the book.

Tumblr: The In The Red Tumblr blog will have daily updates with similar photos, videos and many stories behind the stories from the book. If you have a Tumblr blog, I encourage you to follow. Even if you don't, you can follow the blog by checking back each day or selecting the RSS feed at the top of the page.

As a "thank you" to Jim and the readers of the Dale Jr. Pit Stop website for so many years of fervent support for Dale Jr. and me, you can also find another exclusive chapter from the book there.

In the coming weeks, we will be running a series of contests that will give you an opportunities to win rare 2001 merchandise and other items from my personal archives. We will announce the first contest later this afternoon.

September 22, 2010

I just came across the Detroit-area band Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. Their sound paints dreamy folk/psychedelic soundscapes and they even do a passable cover of the Beach Boys classic "God Only Knows." Their EP is called "Horsepower," and you can get a free download at the Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr. website.

The use of his name is rather interesting, and in a skewered way validates a lot of what we were striving for in the Budweiser years. By appearing in many new and unique media outlets, Dale Jr. transcended NASCAR fans/race fans (NOT always the same - but that's a separate blog topic for another day.) to become more universally recognized in pop culture.

You can see one of their videos (with some hilarious 'vintage' NASCAR uniforms) on my Tumblr blog, now know as Vanity is Expensive.

July 03, 2010

It was a fun blast from the past to see Dale Jr. and Tony Eury Jr. team-up to win another race at Daytona International Speedway Friday night. It was reminiscent of the days when the duo seemed to dominate at will at Daytona in the early-00s. In those days, everyone on the team believed we were going to win every race at Daytona.

I'm happy for both of them on the victory, and hope it sends both of them forward with confidence for the remainder of the season. Here is the full and revealing transcript from the post-race news conference with both Juniors. They talk about deep emotions, history, Junior's beard, Hall of Fame ideas and working together again. Enjoy!

MODERATOR: We're now joined in the infield media center by tonight's winner, driver of the No. 3 Wrangler Chevrolet, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Dale, tell us about your run.

DALE EARNHARDT, JR.: Well, when practice started the car felt great. When the race started, I just kind of tried to run in a straight line, tried not to slide my tires off in the corner, really work the tires too hard. There were some guys racing a little bit harder. Felt like it was gonna be important to take care of your tires.

Near that middle part of the race, we were sitting there with the best-handling car on the track, and we took the lead. Felt like I could hold it till we pitted, which was going to be real short. But the caution came out. We had a 30-lap run till the end. Harvick just set in second place trying to position himself for the finish.

We had a green-white-checkered. I told Logano that his best bet I thought was to try to push us off into one and get both of us clear of the outside row, and then whatever he wanted to do after that was up to him. That's basically how it worked out.

He had a pretty good run on the last lap, the back straightaway. He kind of ducked out a little bit and then thought twice about it because I don't know if the guys behind him were going to do it. Once they got back in line and felt that little shove I got off into three, I felt pretty confident we was gonna win.

I'm happy for Wrangler because they've been a great friend to our family for all these years, and I've enjoyed the relationship that I've had with them. They didn't put anything into the racecar because that's what I asked. I asked them if I could take some of my personal service that we'd already agreed on and carve some of that over to the racecar to run this race. I just wanted to run this paint scheme once. So I want to thank them.

I want to thank Hendrick engines because they improved for us for this race. They worked especially hard to help us for this race. We got a great qualifying run. We had a great, great car in the race power-wise.

Tony, Jr. did an awesome job. He managed his people well and prepared a great car that never had any bugs in practice or never had any flaws throughout the weekend. We had the 88 boys from the AMP Energy National Guard team pitting the car. I want to thank them for volunteering to do that. I hope they volunteered (laughter).

But it was just a fun, fun deal obviously. I was happy to see Richard. He told me before the race we were gonna win, and if we did, he was going to Victory Lane. I told him he was on the car listed as the owner. Rick called me in Victory Lane after the race. He was happy. I thanked him for allowing us to maneuver what we had to to make this package work.

He had to step aside on a few things even though he did build the chassis and the engine. He foregoes some credit toward helping us get here as an owner of our company for the last several wins and this win. So it was great. So that's it. You know, pretty much a real emotional win. But, you know, it was for obviously to honor my father, but for his fans, too. They were so supportive of him, and still are today. So I want to thank them.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Dale. We're also joined by tonight's winning crew chief, Tony Eury, Jr. Tony, your thoughts as the race unfolded from on top of the box.

TONY EURY, JR.: I mean, the way we started out, we had a good qualifying run, like he said. Basically we got a good qualifying run. When the race first started, we was kind of worried about the way the race was going to play out with the incidents and stuff, the car being brand-new. But as the race started, he looked pretty strong. Like he said, people started racing a little bit hard. He kind of fell back a little bit. Then once I seen him on I think it was the second stint, he really started coming up through the field by his-self running the top groove. I was like, Okay, we got something that's capable of winning this race at the end.

Like he said, the 88 AMP guys really stepped up on that last pit stop and got us back out in front. That was pretty key to get back out there in fresh air. From then on, it was just pretty much everybody kind of chilled out and waited till the end.

You know, it was a pretty special win. It's kind of like old times there. Like Dale Jr. said, it's more of a tribute to Dale Sr., the things he brought us. I think we've always had a real good restrictor plate program. Now we got Rick and Richard both involved. That was a real special night for me personally.

You know, to be able to work with Dale Jr. again, I guess caught my first win as a car owner.

Q. Dale, you made it pretty clear here this week that you don't plan to drive the 3 again. You saw again tonight, though the incredible fan emotion tied to all this. Does that make you rethink it at all or are you decided on that?

DALE EARNHARDT, JR.: I will never do it. I'll never rethink it. I'll never consider it. I think that it's important for everybody to know that that's as concrete as it gets. I'll never do it again.

So I enjoyed it. It's hard for me. It's a balancing act between you and the public and myself and my own feelings. I mean, I kind of, you know, look to what you guys are putting out there to kind of get a temperature of how the public's feeling. It's such a tough deal. It's real emotional for me preparing for it and putting it together. Is Rick okay with it? Did Rick mind? Is Richard happy with his role? Is Teresa truly okay? It's just so damn hard to know how everybody feels about it.

Hell, I just want to come race. I just like cool-looking cars. This was a helluva cool-looking car. I always loved the scheme. That's all that mattered to me, was just the scheme. I just love the car. I wanted to race it once, and I did.

I'd run the number before in this series, so I didn't really put a lot of stock in the fact that the 3 was coming back like a lot of people did. I didn't approach it that way mentally, where everyone else was thinking, you know, 3 is back, Earnhardt's 3 is back.

But when I started hearing all that, you know, how everybody was making such a big deal about it, I was like, Shit, man, this is like pressure, man, this is a big deal. So I was a little nervous.

But I don't know if I'd have liked that or not. Regardless of whether I did or not, I made my life pretty much driving that 8 and now the 88. It doesn't make sense for me to do this again. I think in the Nationwide Series, it makes enough sense, and I really wanted to do it, and I've done it.

I don't ever want to do it again. And I'll never change my mind, ever.

May 26, 2010

I was pleased to read that Pete Rondeau has been named crew chief for the Furniture Row team No. 78 with Regan Smith. Rondeau, a native of Maine, is one of the nicest guys you'd ever want to meet, but no matter what he does in his career will be most remembered for his brief stint in 2005 as the crew chief for Dale Jr. and the Bud team. It was a situation no mortal could have helped, and the soft-spoken Rondeau's tenure at the helm was only 11 races. I wish him a lot of fun and long-term success in his new role.

The full story of why and how Rondeau ended up on top of the pit box for Mr. Most Popular is best left for another day, but Rondeau inherited the position for the start of the 2005 Cup season after a decision was made to separate Dale Jr. and Tony Eury Jr. The cousins had always fought and bickered even when things were good, and 2004 had been a superb season with six victories (including the Daytona 500) and 16 top-five finishes while leading more than 1100 laps. Despite the success, friction between the cousins was particularly high following a late-race crash at Atlanta that dropped Dale Jr. from championship favorite to his eventual fifth-place tally in the first Chase for the Cup. Even a victory the following week at Phoenix didn't help frayed and tired nerves.

Rather than patch the rough feelings in the off-season, the choice was made to switch the DEI teams between drivers Dale Jr. and Michael Waltrip, as well as "promote" Tony Eury Sr. from crew chief to a non-descript front office position. (I've never gotten a straight answer as to who at DEI instigated or made the final decision to switch.) This was not a simple switch of drivers, it was a massive undertaking. The entire operation switched shops and equipment, so anything and everything - from the race cars to the smallest piece of pit equipment had to be moved and refurbished. Anything that had been Bud red had to be repainted and decaled with NAPA blue. And vice versa.

The teams entered the 2005 season with cars that had spent more time being repainted than tested and tuned for the race season. The switch also created hard feelings between the two camps and their rivalry further weakened any hope of working together to replicate the superb 2004 campaign. It was every man for himself.

The switch had a variety of odd and sometimes subtle impacts. One of the most memorable was finding out that cars which were originally built and tweaked for the much-taller Waltrip meant Dale Jr. often couldn't see some of the gauges on the dash because of the angle of the seat and steering wheel. Simple and seemingly minor - but symptomatic of the team swap.

Rondeau did all he could given the circumstances, but his mild-manner didn't gel with an emotional driver who needed a more commanding voice in his ear during the race action. Dale Jr. would go on to win one race that season (Chicagoland) with Steve Hmiel as his interim crew chief, and despite being teamed again with Eury Jr. again at DEI and Hendrick, hasn't reclaimed the performance of the 2004 season.

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If you're interested in racing history - or a story of unchecked greed, selfishness and tragedy - check out Sports Illustrated's Ed Hinton four-part story about the open-wheel split in the 1990s. I've written about some of the elements of the split, but this really encapsulates the major issues from the decade. You can find Hinton's story here.

May 18, 2010

I was digging through some old audio files and found a fun snippet from the good ol' days of 2000 when it was still known as the Winston Cup. Budweiser used their swamp buddies Frank and Louie to introduce the country to Bud's new rookie driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Click on the audio icon below to enjoy!